It’s too early to fathom the implications of this pandemic as the crisis is still unleashing its contagious effects; with each day multiplying the cases and, in some countries, reaching a threefold figure every new day. The phenomenon of globalization which had to fuse efforts together to work for shared benefits and common challenges, it remains failed to bring out any meaningful international cooperation. While it was a time to realize more than ever that global challenges require global solutions, the great players are still divided and reluctant to initiate a joint offensive for producing the vaccine. So, who is to blame for this?
For me, it was the greatest test of the US-led global leadership who maintains an unrivaled influence on the polycentric architecture of global governance. They had to set aside the differences to work for an immediate goal. Under the narcissistic, megalomaniac, and impulsive leadership of Donald Trump, expectations run otherwise. When the US is believed to empower the global health institutions with its one of the largest financial and technical contributions, it threatens those institutions for its own geopolitical hunt game. Even during the bi-polar world order in the Cold War times, the Soviet Union and the US concerted together to face the health-related challenges of that era. But now, that’s where China comes in to gain from the US follies. It outstripped the US to help states tackle this pandemic by making international public health relief support. As China’s healthcare aid widens in scope, the post-pandemic scenario will trigger the discourse to redefine the security paradigm, reprioritize security contours, and find new global leadership.
It’s indubitable that the West has been the worst affected by this contagious disease not only in terms of casualties but also in broader economic ramifications as the global supply chain comes to a halt. The markets have been deserted with millions out of jobs and, a countless number of people have been exasperated by lack of supplies to sustain in lockdown conditions. If this unconventional global health emergency has to reverse, the US (global policeman) will have to discontinue its march to undermining China and stop making efforts to establish the link between Corona and Wuhan. With hard-struck by the negative trends in the US oil market, draining surplus and a soaring unemployment rate, the US could possibly face severe economic downturn, the impacts of which will take years to reverse back. For the last few years, the US security wonks continue to shape the global perception that China is trying to undermine the global regimes and international institutions. This assumption was central to containing an exceptionally growing China in order to sustain Washington’s global leadership. As China sneaked into the US poles through financial investments, development corridors and economic debts, the already cash-strapped US has no other way to save the remaining allies drifting towards China. The decisions it takes today will determine its fate in the future and it’s the most pertinent time to rethink “Military Keynesianism”.
In order to compete with China’s soft power projections and broadly, geo-economic expansion, Washington can’t always justify its incessant wars before its allies. The fulcrum is now shifting from geopolitics to geo-economics and in this renewed global thinking, the US manufactured neo-liberal economic model is losing its traction as it only bolstered elites and elites didn’t brace states. While China remains a success story in reshaping the perceptions to invent a broad-based economic agenda for inclusive development and shared growth. To confine the surprisingly surging virus, it took Beijing only a quarter of months to bring things back in order. This strategic thinking shocks the world to rethink unscrupulous Machiavellian principles for statesmanship.
In a nutshell, the era of the US exceptionalism is over now. The US conspiracy theories won’t work. The world now has more plausible choices to make. The world would no more be obsessed with the ideas of chauvinism and jingoism. The real challenges lie in the domain of non-traditional security where China seems to be taking the lead. In this emerging multi-polarity, Thucydides trap will have to be challenged if Khrushchev’s peaceful co-existence has to stay.
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